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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27598498">Lost and Found</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleeting_thoughts/pseuds/fleeting_thoughts'>fleeting_thoughts</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Leverage, Supergirl (TV 2015)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Angst, Crack, Found Family, Gen, Humor, No editing we die like mne, Parker is Supergirl, Reconnecting with family, Texting, crossovers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:35:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,028</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27598498</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleeting_thoughts/pseuds/fleeting_thoughts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kara Zor-El arrives to Earth years after she was meant to and becomes Parker.</p><p>It's both, as silly as it sounds and as angsty as it could be without being... super angsty.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Parker &amp; Clark Kent, Parker &amp; Team Leverage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Past</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Listen, the creators of Leverage didn't leave the character backgrounds as blank as they did so we could be stuck with bland crossovers and fusions lol</p><p>I started this fic ages ago, and just decided to post.<br/>No edits since it was last edited, I don't even know what is going on anymore, just formatted the texts</p><p>Chapter 1 is a very different Mood than the rest of the fic? Like after this it's texting and reconnecting.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kara Zor-El didn’t arrive to Earth to find a somewhat warm and very confused welcome from the grown up cousin she was meant to help. Instead she was greeted by a lot of grown up people pointing guns at her ship and speaking a foreign language she knew from her studies, but couldn't trust herself to speak. So she ran. Scared she tried to find her cousin while steering clear of the men with the guns. She found nothing.</p><p>She ran until she felt she could not run anymore, eyes filled with tears. Kara didn’t want to think about why her parents hadn’t told her about the super speed she would get because that leads her to think about how they’re gone. But it’s too late and now the emotions of loss and pain are back and she can’t be okay, she can’t be okay. She feels drained when she finally manages to calm down. She doesn’t know how long she spends like that, but the sun has gone down and come back up. She is starving. She goes to the closest place with people like sounds, finding it strange that she could hear that far away.</p><p>Kara makes it to the news. At least her face does. She doesn’t like that it happens, but by the time she catches up with the language enough to understand them it’s too late to do anything. She is tired. But at least she gets to eat. She cries every night over her lost planet, a quiet voice in the back of her head whispering that everyone she loves is dead. She doesn’t know what she can say to their questions. She doesn’t want them to find her.  They think she is traumatized, she probably is, but she has things to do. A mission. She needs to find Kal-El.</p><p>Kara reads a lot. She prefers it to sleeping. Sleeping comes with nightmares. Reading comes with information about the new planet and culture. Fiction comes with rough strategies to survive. She locks away Kara and her dreams of helping people, because her idealistic self will not survive alone. She picks a name out of the heroes in the comics, to never forget who she is supposed to be. When they ask if she remembers anything again she says she’s Parker and that her family died in a fire. When one of the other kids teaches her to pick pockets and to use the cards, she masters the skill along with her new-found super speed to become undetectable. The next week she leaves.</p><p>
  <em>When she has time she lets herself be Kara again. Kara remembers her planet and picks every single story she will tell her cousin. She doesn't want to forget any details. Kal-El will grow up listening to stories about their families, knowing about every single thing there was to know.</em>
</p><p>She learns how to drive by herself. People pay her to be their getaway driver. No one knows her quick reflexes come from the sun mixed with her alien body. If anyone notices she is just a little too fast, or that after a particularly hard escape there are dents on the steering wheel no one asks. She thinks that if anyone knows anything about Kal-El it won’t be them, so she moves on.</p><p>
  <em>Kara spends as little of the money she has as possible. When she gets Kal-El back she will need it to get them a house. One of those pretty houses with a backyard, like the ones she had driven away from plenty of times before she moved up to better paying jobs. </em>
</p><p>She hears of the Man of Steel when Kenny is teaching her to steal the cars. He sounds like he has the same powers she does and she plans to leave for his city after one last job. The police get to her too quickly. She could leave, jump up to the sky and fly away. But that’d only alert them of where she was. Parker never gives herself a last name. It feels wrong to claim to be part of any family but her own. They place her as Parker Doe, because apparently it’s a requirement.</p><p>
  <em>Kal-El will never be as hungry as she used to be before she learned all the tricks one could use to get the food she needed. Because she needed a lot, she has to use all of them every day. Not him though. She will feed him all the cereal he could ever ask for and even learn to make those chocolate cakes. They’d be able to eat anything they wanted.</em>
</p><p>The Man of Steel wears the insignia of the house of El. Parker discovers this after catching a glimpse of his picture. People think it stands for Superman, she knows it stands for hope. Six months, on top of however long it had been since she arrived. She could break out, but not without her abilities. Not yet. In juvie she learns about her powers and about the planet. At night people whisper about blue skinned aliens and fire breathing monsters. Kara realizes that she and that other Kryptonian may not be the only aliens on Earth. She is not reassured by that fact.</p><p>
  <em>She will show him how to control his powers. He won’t have to hide little broken objects that were too fragile for their strength because he wouldn’t need to fear her finding out, or be overwhelmed by the ever present sounds that she had to learn to sift through.</em>
</p><p>When she’s out they put her in a home. She never even learns their names before she flies away. The skies are calm and beautiful. She takes a second to enjoy them before the guilt of her cousin being lost comes back. Kara flies faster and faster. She has less practice at that than she does with her other powers, but the long trip helps her.</p><p>
  <em>Kara will find some private place where Kal-El could learn to fly without anyone ever seeing him. After he gets good enough they can visit faraway places together. They can even fly to space where the stars are the most visible and she can tell him about the planets she visited before they got to earth.</em>
</p><p>The bar is the first place she finds where other aliens are. They try to keep her out because she’s too young for the bar, and too human looking for the aliens. She no longer knows how old she is, she has figured out that the time on this planet is pretty much the same, but she doesn’t know when she got to earth. She knows a lot about aliens. They let her in when she shows that she knows. They don’t know anything about the group that greeted her. They have no idea how to contact Superman. They didn’t hear of an alien baby. Kara hates not knowing.</p><p>
  <em>She isn’t sure how to tell him about what happened to their planet. She reads books on child care, and fiction of people who are lied to about their background. They all say to not keep things like that secret, not that many people are in their situation. She might ask one of the bar aliens.</em>
</p><p>With no way to contact Superman without drawing attention. Kara lurks in the dangerous parts of town where people usually get robbed. She pickpockets money to add to the house found and snickers when she realizes that she is exactly where she belongs. No longer the child of the leaders of her planet, but a homeless person with nowhere to go.</p><p>
  <em>Kal-El will never find out the things she did before getting him back to safety. She wouldn’t offend the memory of their house that way. By the time he is grown up enough to understand she’ll have a respectable job. He can go to school and tell her what he learns.</em>
</p><p>The frustration of not finding anything gets to her at the worst possible time. Finally, she gets to be in the same place as the Man of Steel when he is stopping a robbery. Unfortunately, she is the one he is stopping. All Parker can think is that she messed up by using more force than she should, making the person cry out in pain. He softens when he sees that she's a teenage girl. Part of her wants to run, not disappoint the man wearing her family's coat of arms. But she needs to find her cousin.</p><p>He doesn't understand at first. When he does understand she ends up feeling more lost and confused than he had been. Kal-El is standing before her, all grown up and not in any of the dangers she had imagined. Things were nothing like they should have been.</p><p>Not only had Kara failed her mission, she had never even had a chance to be his hero. To him Krypton was a distant planet that had exploded, with only fragmented emotion attached. To her it was the home she would never have again. His parents were far off and unloving, instead he had a family that had taken him in as their own. Kal-El wasn’t really his name, he always answered to Clark Kent.</p><p>
  <em>Everything was wrong.</em>
</p><p>Parker did what she did best. She left because there was no reason to stay. She didn’t have anywhere to go, either. She started drifting from place to place. Parker still kept the money, because having money was always good. She started using it to get things she couldn’t steal, only small amounts. She moved more often than she did before, now that she wasn’t looking for a baby. Now that she had more than the organization coming for her.</p><p>She wasn’t quite sure how Archie caught her, but he did. He offered to teach her and she accepted. Having something to do sounded like it’d be good. It didn’t take him long to figure out that she was faster and stronger than any human was. Unlike everyone else he didn’t brush it off as a weird occurrence, instead sitting her down to tell him all she could do.</p><p>Parker had thought she had her powers under control. She knew enough not to apply more pressure than humans would, and she didn’t often speed more than she wanted. When Archie’s training was done she knew she had been wrong. She could now use it to exactly the amount needed, the same way she could move her body around the laser sensors.</p><p>
  <em>What’s the point of lasers that don’t cut through things, anyway?</em>
</p><p>Archie didn’t ask questions. He never questioned how her powers worked or why she avoided any mention of Superman. He just helped her gain control of herself, because if she couldn’t have control over her life she could at least control her powers. He also helped her learn to hide. Using human methods to hide her powers and mastering them as thoroughly as the powers. There was that one eclipse where her powers went away, and they didn’t want to risk it happening and leaving her helpless.</p><p>When his training was done she left to see the world, maybe even find somewhere that reminded her, completely of her home. There were little reminders everywhere, that person she passed on the street that looked exactly like someone she had known. The dish made in that french prison she broke into so she could try it. The alien who made it was not Kryptonian, but a traveler of worlds who loved to cook. Despite trying to teach her to make it, she never managed to make it just right. </p><p>
  <em>They promised that she could go back, if she ever wanted to try again.</em>
</p><p>Parker doesn’t take a lot of group jobs. Group jobs meant she has to be extra careful and not be caught on any show of power. Not only that, she has to give them money that could have been hers. If the pay is good enough, and she knows she cannot do it alone, though, she will do it.</p><p>
  <em>Kara would have never guessed that stealing the plans would change her life so much. She had forgotten how much she loved helping people. And now that she had done it again she didn’t want to ever stop doing it.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Wedding Job</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Parker makes Hardison set up the most secure kind of one-on-one private line he could do. She does it after they steal the movie set and rescue the children. They made her think about him and how she was meant to protect him, not them. She sneaks into his apartment, and really, she knows he has powers but his lock is laughably easy to open. She eats his chocolate ice cream and leaves a note with the chatroom instructions Hardison printed for her, she signs her name in kryptonian. The “secure phone” is hidden as a price in his cereal and no note, she would have been fine with just one thing, but it was Alec she asked to help and he always goes that extra step.</p><p>The phone rings first. She cannot answer because they’re being briefed about the newest job, rather, Nate and Sophie are arguing if they should even take it on. By the time she’s back to it there are three missed calls and five messages.</p>
<dl class="imessage">
<div class="in">
	<dd>Why is this the only number on a phone that mysteriously got to my cereal box?</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
	<dd>Kara. Oh my God.</dd>
	<dd>You’re alive!</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
	<dd>How did you get in?</dd>
	<dd>How did you know where I live?</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
	<dd>Your lock is too easy to pick. Get a new one.</dd>
</div>
</dl><p>Not that a new lock could keep her out, but it might help him be at peace. She even decided to helpfully suggest one everyone found particularly hard to get past. She has to reject a call. </p>
<dl class="imessage">
<div class="out">
	<dd>Not now. We have to go steal a wedding.</dd>
</div>
</dl><p>She calls when they finish the job, not bothering to read the 16 messages he left. <em>Really Kal?</em> He picks up on the fourth ring. She sets down the rig she had planned to work on. “Kara? Finally! What took you so long?” She can hear the worry in his voice. A pang of the guilt she has made herself forget about makes its way back into her chest. On top of not protecting him, she had made him worry for years.</p><p>“I got called in for a job,” she replies. Parker had wanted to ask Sophie how to sugarcoat her life to sound respectable to a hero. But that’d mean telling her something she wasn’t ready to share.</p><p>“You-” he stops, taking a deep breath before continuing. “You have a job?”</p><p>She closes her eyes considering what to say. “Sort of. I help people now.” It comes out the way she hoped, the way she had rehearsed following Sophie’s tips on dealing with marks. “We got an innocent man out of prison and kept their restaurant safe.” It was a very simplified version, missing all the excitement and mafia involvement. She hopes it is enough.</p><p>“That sounds great. Why don’t we meet up and we can catch up in person…? You’re probably close enough.”</p><p>“Kal, I left that days ago.” She doesn’t confirm or deny her location. He probably notices.</p><p>“Okay,” Clark had expected that. She hadn’t left what looked like an untraceable military phone and a secure chat room so she could come out and talk in person. “How are you? What have you been doing all this time?” <em>Why did you leave?</em> He doesn’t ask. He is probably building up to it. As a reporter, he had to know some of the same tricks Sophie did to get people to talk.</p><p>Parker doesn’t know what to say to that, so she hopes to never get to it. “I’m okay. I’ve been doing things differently. The other day, I was reminded I should appreciate the family I have. You’re it for me, all I have left.”</p><p>“I don’t have to be,” he reminds her quietly. “But I’m happy you reached out.”</p><p>She closes her eyes feeling relief flood over her. She wants to apologize, but she can’t make herself bring it up. “I’m happy, too.” </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Mile High Job</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was weeks later when she messaged. They had finished their job and she had seen his headline on the way back. It had made her grin as Hardison ranted over the coms about how unfair it was that they did the same thing but got no credit. Parker doesn’t tell him she was ready to jump off the ship to save the plane in the exact same way. She didn’t understand the feeling.</p>
<dl class="imessage">
<div class="out">
	<dd>We both saved a plane today 😄</dd>
</div>
</dl><p>He answered almost immediately, she should have expected it.</p>
<dl class="imessage">
<div class="in">
	<dd>I didn’t see anything about another plane being saved?</dd>
	<dd>And I work at the news.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>Kayman Islands, emergency landing.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
	<dd>You fly a plane? I didn’t know that.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>No. There was a bomb.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Why were you on a plane with a bomb?!</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>We had a client.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>What kind of client?</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>They needed help.</dd>
</div>
</dl>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Snow Job</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <dl class="imessage">
<h4 class="time"><b>19 Jan. 2009</b></h4>
<div class="out">
	<dd class="pic"></dd>
	<dd>breakfast!</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd class="pic"></dd>
	<dd>Breakfast.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd class="emoji">🙄</dd>
    <dd>It’s a valid Zor-El breakfast, idk what you want me to say.</dd>
</div>
<h4 class="time"><b>20 Jan. 2009</b></h4>
<div class="out">
    <dd>Don’t you hate having to downplay your skills to pass as normal?</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Another plane saving thing?</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>No. Our client lost his house.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>How are these connected?</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>Well, I had to hang off a chair and like, pretend to be scared</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Your boss thinks you’re human and had you do <em>what?!?!</em>
</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>I know??? I’ve hung off higher cliffs in my sleep!</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>I don’t think you should work there anymore.</dd>
</div>
</dl><p>Parker isn’t too afraid of organ failure, or any death like symptoms that could happen if Hardison were to inject her with whatever he was suggesting. She is more against the needle. Not because she is afraid of needles, but because they cannot actually pierce her skin to do their job, and then the team would know that she was not human and she couldn’t have that.</p><p>Sophie gave her tips on how to act like she was dying. She told her to think of her father and she barked out an instinctive laughter before her mind could drift that far back into her own past. She didn’t need to think of her planet to pretend to be dying. She can just think about how she felt when she found Clark. Empty. Without purpose. A failure.</p><p>She calls him while they’re waiting. He doesn’t pick up right away, but right as she’s giving up on it, he finally answers. “Kara, uh, hi?” There’s a commotion on his side. Maybe she should have checked the news before calling. “Sorry, really want to talk. But there’s this metahuman...” a rush of wind made the rest of his explanation hard to hear, but she could imagine.</p><p>“It’s okay. Go save the city.”</p><p>“Thanks cuz.”</p><p>It was easy to look dead inside when she didn’t feel very alive in the first place. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The 12-Step Job</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In rehab Parker felt… happy. It happened during one of those once in a while sun events where her powers were blocked. She didn't feel the guilt of survival and failure.</p><p>“Hi Kal,” she giggled. Parker had snuck the phone from one of the orderlies. She hadn't even noticed what she had done until she was staring at the device in her room.</p><p>She heard fumbling. “Kara!” he greeted. “Are you okay? Did you get into any accidents with the Solar Flare?” his voice dropped to a whisper at the last part. Parker giggled when she realized he meant her powers being away.</p><p>“I’m on antidepressants,” she informed him. “I stole this phone,” she added as an afterthought, it didn't even occur to her that this could be a bad idea. “The lady who isn't Sophie said I should apologize to people.”</p><p>Parker heard whatever lecture about picking pockets die in his throat. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“Healing. Or something. I figure it's as good a time as any.” She wanted to stop and breathe before going on, but if she did he wouldn't let her finish. “I messed up. Bad. I was afraid for me, and afraid for you. For… years I imagined you suffering. Alone. No family anywhere but me.”</p><p>“You know I was-"</p><p>“Now I do. But I spent years searching for you. I researched babies, and toddlers and secretive government organizations. I had plans, plans that kept me going-” she cut herself off, unsure how she wanted to continue that sentence. “I didn’t know how to cope.” Parker used language she had scoffed at a little bit when she read it, but she could feel it was right now. “I lost my planet, my past, and then I lost the future,” she was crying, she hadn’t noticed until a hiccup interrupted her, “I lost the future I imagined.”</p><p>“Why don't I go over?” he offered. He hoped she'd give the place away willingly, that he wouldn't have to explain that he tracked the phone.</p><p>“No,” she said firmly, wiping the tears away. “Too far from Metropolis anyway.”</p><p>Chloe sent him the address back and yes it was too far to get there quickly without his superspeed. “It doesn't matter. If… if you're not okay I'll do my best to get you.” He was already messaging Barry to be on standby in case she needed an extraction.</p><p>“I'm okay. We just had to get into rehab to find someone.” </p>
<hr/><p>A day later Clark sat in the waiting room hoping to get a glimpse of her and ask the name she was under. No one was there under the name of Kara. He finally spotted her as she was leaving, but she didn’t seem to notice him in her rush to get outside. Clark followed, hoping to get her before she could leave, but instead he watched as she ran to a small group of people by a tree.</p><p>Kara jumped on the shortest guy, wrapping arms and legs around him in a hug. He seemed to reciprocate, even as he gruffly asked when the antidepressants would wear off. The second man she hugged, tall and dark skinned, had clear affection in his voice while saying he liked her like she was now. From him Clark got a name.</p><p>Parker.</p><p>Clark had been trying to find her for years. Ever since that night on the rooftop, where she didn’t quite break into sobs as she apologized for stealing, but her eyes did well up. She did cry when she told him of her planet, <em>their</em> planet’s destruction, and how she couldn’t find her cousin. Where they realized he <em>was </em>her baby cousin. Where she banished into the night never to be seen.</p><p>He considered following them. He had wanted to take her in from the moment he found out they were from the same planet, but if their conversation over the phone earlier was any indication, she wasn’t ready for that. As he watched, she flung her arms around the two men she had hugged, walking away and Clark decided that maybe she needed more time to build a family on Earth. She had finally started reaching out, and for now, maybe it was enough.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The Juror #6 Job</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Parker had been so stupid.</p><p>Krypton was on the forefront of her mind, and it was taking all of her to keep it back. It showed on their jobs, too. She knew that her reluctance to let herself think was causing her to make increasingly bad calls on jobs. She didn’t want her team hurt, knew she could at any moment pull them from the buildings and fly down to soften their landing, but that it would reveal her.</p><p>It’d bring the truth closer to life, much like it was getting in her mind.</p><p>Kal had been calling her, but ever since her time in rehab she had been avoiding contact.</p><p>How did people talk to others after crying into the phone like she had? Could she just act like it hadn’t happened? Maybe if she did, and Kal followed, she’d finally be able to let go. The summons for jury duty gave her the perfect excuse.</p>
<dl class="imessage">
<h4 class="time"><b>10 Feb. 2009</b></h4>
<div class="out">
    <dd>I have to go to Jury Duty and H won’t get me out of it 😠</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>It’s your civic duty?</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>I’m an illegal <em>space</em> alien</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Your duty as an inhabitant of this country?</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>…</dd>
    <dd>They’re not even calling for me.</dd>
    <dd>It’s Alice they want, not Kara.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Who is Alice?</dd>
    <dd>Kara, people are not supposed to use fake IDs for this.</dd>
</div>
<h4 class="time"><b>11 Feb. 2009</b></h4>
<div class="out">
    <dd>I think there’s something wrong in my trial.</dd>
    <dd>I can hear their earbuds.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Can you report them?</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>[link about jury tampering]</dd>
    <dd>[link about mistrials]</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>They’ll just do it again.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Would it help if Superman showed up?</dd>
</div>
<h4 class="time"><b>12 Feb. 2009</b></h4>
<div class="out">
    <dd>...how do you get people to trust you?</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Usually by being nice.</dd>
    <dd>Giving them ma’s homecooking is usually a winner</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>I mean the jury.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>I need them to trust me.</dd>
    <dd>I made them stop trusting the other guy</dd>
    <dd>But how do I make them trust me</dd>
    <dd>They’re all so normal, and I… I’m not that.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>There’s this woman who shows me pictures of her family all the time, and I…</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Just show them you’re a good person.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>You don’t know that.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>You’re my family. I do know.</dd>
</div>
<h4 class="time"><b>14 Feb. 2009</b></h4>
<div class="out">
    <dd>I think Alice made a friend</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Who is Alice?</dd>
</div>
</dl>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The First David Job</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With as many people who could fly, one would think there’d be more security systems that prevented them. They seem to be a very niche kind of system, though. Provided by Wayne Enterprises and few others. Parker kept track of them all, but she kept track of all the types of security systems that come out. Made it easier to know what works on them when presented with something like this.</p><p>Her brain was already working on ways to break in as the others walked in to see the First David with little input from Parker herself. There were the fancy ways, all the tools one could use to render the sensors useless. Fingerprints could be provided, along with a way to fool the sensor into thinking there was body heat behind the finger. Lasers could be avoided, up to a point, then reflected. Heat sensors could be fooled. It’d be easy enough.</p><p>Doing it all with just a roll of tin foil, some eyeshadow, ice and under half an hour though? Just enough of a challenge to make her day to be the one to pull it off. </p>
<dl class="imessage">
<h4 class="time"><b>17 Feb. 2009</b></h4>
<div class="out">
    <dd>I have the best team</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>What do you mean?</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>We just</dd>
    <dd>nvm</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>You can tell me ^.^</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>Can you pretend you’re not superman?</dd>
    <dd>or a reporter</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>yes</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>We broke into a high security place with nearly no prep.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>…</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>on our day off!</dd>
    <dd>N says we have to return it though :(</dd>
</div>
</dl>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This is the end of where I tried to like... follow an actual storyline???</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Close Call</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The team almost meets Clark Kent</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Kara?" A warm hand wrapped around her free wrist. Parker would have kept going and shrugging off the person, but she recognized the voice and she knew they wouldn't let her go. Instead she whirled around, finding Clark right behind her. "Why didn't you tell me you were in town?"</p><p>"Parker just got stopped by a press guy," Hardison informed the team. He was probably scanning the badge already. "It's Cl-"</p><p>"Clark," she greeted. She hoped he wouldn't say much. She only had a minute to spare before she had to leave the room. "I'm working," she held up her tray to illustrate the point.</p><p>His eyes narrowed, and she heard Nate telling her to get away quickly. "I know you're not a waitress."</p><p>She grinned. "Tonight I am," she said. They looked at each other for a second and she considered taking out her com. She didn't. "We can have breakfast tomorrow."</p><p>Clark nodded, hand still linked around hers. "Look, the guy hosting this... He's bad. I don't like you being here more than you have to."</p><p>"He's so cute Parker," Sophie cooed into her ear.</p><p>"You need to move," Nate hurried. "Eliot."</p><p>Parker didn't turn, but a second later she saw him crash into Clark, spilling his drink onto his suit. "I'm so sorry, man." She didn't stick around, turning to walk away before he had finished apologizing. Kal was already hushing the hitter and looking for her, but Eliot could be persistent.</p><p>Parker was in the office alone, cracking into the safe when Clark speed into the room. She turned and motioned for him to be quiet, then pulled out the contents of the safe. "I got it, it says here that he's been working with Luthorcorp to cover up the accident," she read after skimming the papers. Then she scanned them with her phone and sent the file to Hardison, before placing them back into the safe and closing it. After a second she spoke again “The guy from earlier is outside, I'm going to talk to him.”</p><p>“Be careful babe,” Hardison murmured.</p><p>“Keep your com in.” Eliot added with a grunt.</p><p>Parker felt a bit guilty. “Privately. I’ll let you know if I need help.” She took the earbud out before they could answer, then pulled Kal outside. “If we stay here any longer the camera will get us,” she explained when he looked like he'd resist.</p><p>“Why did you break into that safe?” he asked </p><p>“We needed information. Weren't you here for the same thing?” she tilted her head. She was a little glad she beat him to it. His methods with safes weren't the kindest, and leaving a trail would tip the mark.</p><p>“It's different. I'm a-"</p><p>“I have all of your abilities.” She didn't mean to interrupt, but she didn't like that he thought her helpless. </p><p>“What if they catch you?”</p><p>Parker shrugged. “They won't. I'm the best at what I do and I hardly ever act more than human.”</p><p>Clark looked like he wanted to argue, but he couldn't exactly tell her to stop stealing when he had been about to break into a safe himself. “Okay,” he nodded. “Do you need any help?”</p><p>She started to shake her head, then stopped. “Does he know you are after him?”</p><p>“Only as Clark Kent.” he shrugged. “Do you want me to back off?”</p><p>Parker mulled it over, trying to fit him into the plan. “I'm not the mastermind,” she groaned at him. “But I'm pretty sure that if you just back off he will be suspicious… just make it look like there's nothing to find.”</p><p>“Then what? He is very dangerous and very powerful, you don't just mess with these people. What if Lex hears about this?”</p><p>“Lex will hear of this. But not about us. We walk away.”</p><p>This time his nod was more forceful. “Promise to call me if anything goes wrong.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Snippets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time she actually told them more than vague details it's after a job. There's children involved and the three of them are left with that faint ache of could-have-beens and protectiveness. There was also a baby involved, which she was somehow left to look after, which made her panic. Eliot had had to calm her down and Hardison had coached her through it like some complicated operation.</p><p>“Have you really never cared for a baby before?” Hardison asked and she knew he was joking.</p><p>“Last time someone left me in charge of a baby I lost them within an hour and when I found him he was a fully grown superhero.” She didn't mean to honestly answer, but she did and she was smiling as she spoke. They were too, until-</p><p>“Oh. Shit. Babe.” Hardison looked like he thought he might have murdered someone, backtracking over his own words. Eliot just stopped smiling, turning quiet eyes on her in an offer to speak more.</p><p>She reached out and touched Hardison’s arm to get his attention before he fell into the kind of panic only he could work himself up to. “It’s okay. I have you guys now.”</p><p>“How did that work though?”</p><p>Parker shrugged. “My pod was knocked off course,” she said. It’s an echo of the short version she had gritted out when she first explained it. “I don’t know how. I didn’t even know to where until very recently…” she trailed off, wondering if it was worth it to explain what the Phantom Zone was. Hardison pulled her back and she nodded.</p><p>She spoke for maybe an hour, maybe a bit more. Eliot cooked while she talked in the kind of quiet procedures he only manages when serious talks are on. She felt his wish to comfort her in the meal as well as in Hardison’s eyes. They didn’t really talk after she was done. There was not much to say.</p>
<hr/>
<dl class="imessage">
<div class="in">
    <dd>What did you do to my locks?</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>Changed them.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>I thought Batman did it.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>You were basically asking to get robbed.</dd>
    <dd>Did you ask him?</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>I wasn't. My locks worked.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>At holding back a six year old. Sure.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Yes. He's telling me to change them again.</dd>
    <dd>…</dd>
    <dd>Six year olds don't pick locks.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>I got you the best locks. Nothing short of a master thief will get in. He can try.</dd>
    <dd>How would you know?</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>You locked the window, too? I'm not on the first floor and there's no firescape.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>You fly. Others fly. There's a couple ways to get it done without flying.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Your concern is weird.</dd>
    <dd>Maybe I should do this in your house.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>You don't know what <em>city</em> I live in.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>Some day.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>This might get me into trouble with my landlord though.</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>I bought your building.</dd>
</div>
<div class="in">
    <dd>How…? Why…?</dd>
</div>
<div class="out">
    <dd>To install a new lock.</dd>
</div>
</dl>
<hr/><p>Kal was hurt. Parker saw it on TV and she knew she was supposed to be laying low, knew she shouldn’t fly off to him. But she was always meant to take care of him. Even now, when she was this far away she couldn’t idly sit by and wait as another Kryptonian attacked.</p><p>Parker knew how things worked. She wasn’t </p><p>Kal was always barefaced when he appeared on TV. Parker knew her face could be on TV a while and not risk being recognized by everyone around. Sophie had done it. Still, she got a mask from a store before flying off  to stand in front of her fallen cousin against her aunt. “Leave him alone!”</p><p>Astra didn’t stop, her age probably keeping her identity safe even better than her last minute mask. When she lunged Parker met her head on in a way she knew she could never do with a human. She wasn’t like Eliot, couldn’t fight like he could, but he had been teaching them, and she knew how to block a punch. She staggered back, unused to the force someone with similar strength could put behind their movements.</p><p>“Stay out of this,” Astra snarled.</p><p>Parker took a deep breath, planting her feet in just the right way and braced herself for more. “I won’t let you hurt him.”</p><p>“This is not a discussion for Earthlings,” she spat out at her and the part of her that was still Kara, who loved her aunt, broke just a little. Parker wasn’t from this planet. Had never asked to come and maybe for the most part she had simply <em>survived</em>, but now she was starting to <em>live</em>. Astra delivered another punch, swift and uncaring, Parker deflected, thanking Eliot in her head for showing her the move meant to guard against opponents with twice her strength.</p><p>She knew she couldn’t take anyone with her own strength in a fight, the same way she knew she couldn’t take someone weaker from fear of killing them. She needed a different plan. She had to distract Astra, keep her talking. “Why do you hurt someone from your own planet?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Final Thoughts on what this was meant to end as</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Season 1:<br/>Parker start texting after stork job<br/>Parker starts almost stalking him between David jobs<br/>Parker helps thwart alien invasion between seasons<br/>Season 2:<br/>They run into Clark on job<br/>Parker talks to team about loss on the future job<br/>Season 3:<br/>Parker tells the team Clark is her cousin?<br/>Season 4:<br/>Parker tell team the whole thing<br/>Leverage team takes Kon in<br/>Season 5:<br/>Parker starts using the supergirl name for more than world-ending crisis</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Would you consider adding a <a href="https://fanlore.org/wiki/Blanket_Statement">Blanket Statement</a> to your profile?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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